How Obama Exploited Ferguson By Pushing A False Narrative

“Once I found an issue enough people cared about, I could take them into action. With enough actions, I could start to build power. Issues, actions, power, self-interest. I liked these concepts. They bespoke a certain hardheadedness, a worldly lack of sentiment; politics, not religion”, wrote Barack Obama in his first autobiography Dreams Of My Father.

Take a second to think about this statement made by Obama in 1995 and then apply it to what we see today six years into his presidency.

False narratives are pushed relentlessly until they give way to actions over issues that are seemingly endless. Obama perceives to have the power to act by simply making the claim of absolute truth about an issue that simply doesn’t exist. Republicans, if they decide to counter Obama, are immediately put on the defensive, trying to argue a counter point that is impossible to prove.

You simply cannot prove a false argument and by fighting it, or moreover capitulating to Obama’s position, Republicans allow the false narrative to be pushed until it becomes reality.

This is an effort by Obama to consolidate and build power by pushing fake solutions to false problems that in-turn hide his own self-interest. The Eric Garner ruling in New York City and the Michael Brown ruling in Ferguson, Missouri gives us a perfect example of how Obama has been able to push a false narrative into reality.

Working from a reverse chronological order, we can begin to understand how the president has fueled racial animosity throughout not only Missouri, but the United States.

On Wednesday, December 3rd, Obama addressed the country regarding a grand jury’s decision not to indict a New York City police officer in the death of Eric Garner. Obama stated that “this case speaks to larger issues” such as the feeling within black communities that “law enforcement is not working with them and dealing with them in a fair way”.

He further went on to blatantly lie that his “tradition is not to remark on cases where there may still be an investigation”.

We know this is a lie based upon Obama’s own statements regarding the shooting of Trayvon Martin. While the case was still under investigation the president remarked ” If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon”.

While this may seem irrelevant to the Garner and Brown cases, it isn’t as it proves a pattern of outright deceit that is entirely relevant to what we saw in Ferguson, MO.

On Monday, November 24th, a grand jury in Ferguson decided not to indict officer Darren WIlson for the fatal shooting that resulted in the death of Michael Brown.

While the St. Louis County prosecutor announced the reasoning as to why there was no indictment, Obama took to the air-waives to discredit and vilify our legal system. Specifically, Obama made it a point to note that the “grand jury made a decision that upset a lot of people”.

As Hans von Spakovsky of the Daily Signal writes, “Obama added more fuel to the fire of the false claim that racial bias was at the root of what happened”.

According to Obama, the outrage about what happened in Ferguson has “deep roots in many communities of color who have a sense that our laws are not always being enforced uniformly or fairly…and its not just made up. It’s rooted in realities that have existed in this country for a long time”.

Rather than using the office of the presidency to give a unique message to the African-American community he claims to represent, the president declared that the legal system had failed and racism prevailed without any evidence to prove the latter.

What happened immediately following the grand jury decision not to indict Wilson was perfectly orchestrated chaos and lawlessness that the media perpetuated beyond belief.

Yet, how was it that so many were able to come together to perpetuate the chaos while chanting “hands up, don’t shoot” so quickly after the grand jury ruling?

The answer comes to us in the form of a White House meeting that took place between Ferguson protest leaders and the president on November 5th. A meeting that featured the likes of Al Sharpton, in which he stated that Obama “was concerned about Ferguson staying the course“.

“The course” in which Obama was referring to is the solution to the false narrative he helped create. Primarily that of creating a “broad shift in police training and culture, and in officers’ behavior and attitudes” beginning with civilian review boards and body cameras on officers.

This being the ends to which Obama has justified the means of exploiting racism, we can conclude that “the course” had already been revealed to us by Michael McPhearson, an activist and co-chairman of the Hands Up Don’t Shoot Coalition who met with Obama on November 5th.

Revealed on the last paragraph of a November 17th New York Times article and a week before the grand jury announcement, McPhearson states “We’re calling for police accountability, police transparency, changing how the police do their work. If there’s an indictment or if there’s not an indictment, we still have work to do.”

About Nick Dylan Short

Nick Short, a graduate of Northern Arizona University with a Bachelors in Criminal Justice. PoliticallyShort offers a perspective from a millennial regarding current events, politics and news outside the beltway of Washington D.C.